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LABOR

Echoing the message that Canadi-
ans all across the country have given
the joint parliamentary committee,
speakers representing trade unionists,
seniors, the unemployed and youth
told Prime Minister Brian Mulroney
Friday that the decision he vowed to
make “very fast” should be a flat
“no” to any participation whatsoever
in the Reagan administration’s Star
Wars initiative.

“We want to tell you and your
cabinet colleagues that working men
and women don’t want any part of
any program that is going to turn our
homes, our schools, our hospitals and
our factories into the firing field and
the battleground of a nuclear war,’
Hospital Employees Union secretary-
business manager Jack Gerow told a
noon rally at Robson Square, just
across the street from the hotel where
the Tory cabinet was meeting during a
three-day B.C. stopover.

“For Ronald Reagan and Star
Wars, we want you to say no, no, no,”
Gerow said, parodying Mulroney’s
election promise of “jobs, jobs, jobs.”

More than 300 people gathered for
the rally, called by End the Arms Race
and End Legislated Poverty to reiter-
ate the Canada-wide opposition to
participation in the Star Wars pro-
gram as the Mulroney cabinet was
meeting in Vancouver and as the joint
Commons-Senate committee was pre-
paring to submit its report to the

Say ‘no, no, no’ to Star Wars, PM told

cabinet on Star Wars and bilateral
trade with the U.S.

The rally also came the day after
Mulroney told reporters that even if
the report of the committee was
equivocal, he “would make a decision
for them and would make it very
fast.”

In fact, the committee report was
indecisive, although the call by the
committee co-chairman Tom Hockin
for an “interim no” to Star Wars par-
ticipation and the recommendation
that consideration of arms control
and escalation of the danger of nuclear
war should come before jobs repres-
ented a victory for the peace move-
‘ment.

The report punctured the illusion,
created by Mulroney earlier this year,

_ that thousands of jobs would accrue
to Star Wars research, noting that the
initiative was unlikely to result in sig-
nificant job creation. It also discounted
claims by Star Wars lobbyists that the
U.S. would tie other issues to partici-
pation in the program.

Liberals and New Democrats on
the committee had reportedly opted
for total rejection of Star Wars but
could not get support of all the Tory
members, indicating that sections of
the government majority are wedded
to participation in Star Wars. The

. report itself left the door open to Can-
adian participation by recommending
that the cabinet seek additional classi-

MOLLY JOHNSTON...

impassioned
appeal against Star Wars.

fied information from the U.S. before and the middle class and full indexing
making a decision.
The committee was not given access Yet military spending is the most |
to classified information — involving. inefficient’ way to create jobs, Jim ©
questions of technology transfers and Lipkovits, a member of the Commun- ~
plans for U.S. deploymént of Star ity Business and Professional Associa-
Wars weapons developments — but tion, told the rally. ’
that information was made available Calling Star Wars research “a
to Arthur Kroeger who was commis- monumental waste of taxpayers’
sioned earlier this year to study Star money,” he emphasized that the cost |
Wars participation and whose report of creating jobs in high+technology is —
has not been released by cabinet.
Mulroney has stated that a final business incurs in job creation.
decision will be made Sept. 9. And as “There is no sound economic rea-

he left Vancouver Aug. 23, demon
strators left no room for doubt as to
what that decision should be.

North Shore Seniors representativ
Betty Griffin, one of those who cam- |
paigned in this province against the |
Tory government’s de-indexation of
pensions, urged Canadians to echo
the campaign mounted over pensions

“We won that campaign because |
Canadians young and ‘old spoke out,” |
she said. “Now Canadians should |
speak out with one united voice that —
cannot be ignored: keep Canada out
of Star Wars.” 4

Griffin also noted the hypocrisy of |
the Tories who have maintained full |
indexing for military spending which
is to be maintained at a level more
than three per cent above inflation.

“That’s what this government has |
given us — de-indexing for the poor

for the military,” she said.

about five times the cost that small |

Unemployed coal miners in this country
might be working instead of having to draw
_ unemployment insurance or welfare if the
federal government would “think Cana-
dian” as a government motto urges Cana-
dians to do.

That’s the response of the Canadian
Labor Congress and the United Mine
Workers (UMW) to the “Think Canadian”
program instituted by the Tory government
_ which calls on Canadians to utilize Cana-
_ dian products and services first.

But despite the publicity surrounding the

_ any pressure on a number of Canadian steel
companies and particularly on Crown-
_ Owned Ontario Hydro which go outside
_ Canada for substantial supplies of what is
probably one of Canada’s most abundant
_ resource products — coal.

_ Few Canadians are probably aware that
more than $1 billion in metallurgic and
steam coal is imported into Canada from
the U.S. — in 1984 a total value of Cdn.
$1,296,746,656.

According to figures sent out earlier this
month to unions across Canada by the
CLC, some 6,985,173 tonnes of metallurgic
__ ¢oal were imported from the U.S. at $75.89
_ atonne last year. For steam coal, the figures
are 11,280,781 tonnes at $67.96 a tonne.

__ Those prices are higher than similar qual-
< ity coal produced by mines in the three
western provinces. And according to Bill
Spree erie as

: AB heethyertea to Cote as we
tion is even worse than it was in 1982 when

he first began pressing for government pol-
SS ee

That year, the union estimated that if the
went to Canadian sources to meet their

campaign, Ottawa hasn’t bothered to put ~

Canadians paying in lost jobs,
pollution for U.S. coal imports

needs, it would result in 32,000 new jobs.
The result, he said, would have been a
reduction in unemployment insurance costs
of $384 million per year and an increase in
federal government revenue from personal
income tax of $115 million.

But despite the various campaigns like
the “Think Canadian” program, the situa-
tion hasn’t changed. In fact, coal imports
have gone up from 16,515,114 tonnes in
1982 to 18,265,954 tonnes in 1984.

Much of the metallurgical coal is brought
in by the subsidiary companies of U.S.-
owned corporations which are a captive
market for the U.S. parent company which
often owns the mine.

“They pay an inflated price for the U.S.
coal but it’s a way of shipping profits out of
Canada,” Stuart said.

Both the steel companies and Ontario
Hydro claim that transportation costs are
the major factor in their decisions to supply,
although much of the difference in cost has
been taken up recently by the high rate of
U.S. exchange.

But a cost factor which Ontario Hydro
does not acknowledge publicly is the sul-
phur content of the coal. U.S. coals are high
in sulphur which, when the coal is burned,
combines with the oxygen in the air to form
sulphuric acid — the “acid” of acid rain.

On the other hand, Canadian coal is low
in sulphur, Stuart emphasized. It has only
one-eighth the sulphur content of U.S. coal,
a statistic which has immense significance
for reducing sulphur emissions and there-
fore acid rain.

The union leader said that sulphur emis-

sions could be reduced by some 500 tonnes
annually simply by replacing the U.S. coal
Canadian coal

with ;

_ Stuart said that UMW members find it
ironic that Ontario Hydro is spending mil-
lions on scrubbers to reduce emissions when

~ itcould make a major contribution to emis-

sion reduction by going over to Canadian
coal sources. —

“Why spend extra millions on scrubbers _ Pointing to the hotel across the

to keep people unemployed?” he asked, street where the cabinet was meeting, —
adding that the corporation incurs extra she called on Mulroney to take three |

costs by using high-sulphur U.S. coal.

He emphasized that Ontario Hydro does the Canada wants no part of Star
use some Canadian coal, from Byron Creek Wars; to tell the U.S. to “go to Gen-
Collieries in this province as well as from eva and negotiate seriously for mutu- ”
mines in Edson, Alberta and Estevan, Sas- ally verifiable disarmament; and to |
katchewan. “But if we’re sending some now use the Star Wars research money to ©
why don’t we provide all that’s needed?”’, he wipe out poverty.”

If it requires a subsidy on transportation Vancouver Youth for Peace Action
to make up any cost difference, he added, representative Molly Johnston that
that is still preferable to having hundreds of caught the spirit of opposition that |
miners on unemployment insurance.

That’s a particularly relevant point for including leading scientists and Nobel —
miners in southeastern B.C. who have been laureates to speak out against the
hit with layoffs and extensive shutdowns in Reagan initiative. z
recent months and will have more shut- _ “When I see the Star Wars pro- |
downs to look forward to over the next gram I see only hopelessness — and —

Stuart also emphasized that splerarovne the audience.

means the provinces trading with each other tomorrows.
and using Canadian coal first.”

cial trade, particularly in energy resources, “I have rights and one of those |.
is also important. “If we’re going to have a rights is the right to live. I don’t want |
coal industry in this country, it means to be part of a world full of laser |
developing a domestic market — and that beams, projectile beams — and empty
“I am saying to Mulroney: give us |
The CLC has called on unionists across back the future — say no to the |

the country to write their federal and pro- insanity and ignorance of Star Wars.”
vincial members and insist on Canadian
coal rather than imported.

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son for Star Wars research — and the
price we will pay is more tension in
the arms race,” he said.

Jean Swanson, speaking for End |
Legisiated Poverty, a coalition of anti-
poverty and unemployed groups, told —
the rally, “The unemployed don’t |
want Star Wars —they don’t want
jobs that increase the risk of the arms"
race and they know the scheme will -
actually reduce the number of jobs.” |

steps immediately: to state clearly that

But it was high school student and :

has prompted thousands of people, |

that makes me very angry,” she told |

PACIFIC

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